I thought of an ostracised rhesus monkey, throwing its baby at the walls of a cage.
It was too much. Nick didn’t need an investigative journalist. He needed a therapist.
I couldn’t do it. I was no Nellie Bly. I was just a teenager.
Nick was still curled over, his face hidden. I knew I should stay with him, try to make things okay, let him know that at least someone in the world cared. But every single cell and atom in my body was humming with fear. I knew about the fight-or-flight response – it had always seemed a cliché. But it was real.
I fled Nick’s room, leaving his house, his life and the loveshy project behind me.
I’d made PEZZimist.blogspot.com my homepage when I’d started the project, so it automatically loaded when I got home and powered up my laptop. I hesitated. After tonight, there was no way I was going to work on the loveshy project anymore. I should just stay away from Nick.
I slammed the lid of my laptop closed, picked up the whole thing and shoved it into the back of my wardrobe. I didn’t want Nick’s horrible life to infect mine. I didn’t ever want to see him again. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.
11
IT WASN’T DIFFICULT TO AVOID Nick on Friday. At lunchtime I went to my SRC meeting, where we finalised the catering and entertainment for the social. We’d sold tickets to nearly 80 per cent of the student body, so we’d make a tidy profit and I could finally start implementing the canteen recycling program I’d been working on. After school there was a special pre-publication meeting of the Gazette, where we finalised the layout and story list for the next edition. East Glendale’s star basketball champion needed a knee reconstruction. The Vegan Alliance was picketing the Home Economics room for not offering any cruelty-free recipes. Mr Whiteside was retiring at the end of the semester, after working at the school for forty-eight years.
‘What about the front page?’ asked Ms Tidy. ‘You’ve been working on something, haven’t you, Penny?’
‘Um.’ I hadn’t, although I’d told her I needed to skip the last meeting because I’d been too busy working on a story. The loveshy story. Which I’d never intended for the Gazette in the first place, but was now not going to write at all.
The rest of the Gazette committee looked at me expectantly. I couldn’t tell them I hadn’t done anything.
‘Yep,’ I said. ‘It’s nearly done.’
‘And … ’ Ms Tidy raised her eyebrows. ‘Can you share the topic with us?’
‘N-no,’ I said slowly. ‘The article is of a very sensitive nature. It’s a profile of a student. I can’t tell you who it is yet.’
Ms Tidy seemed unimpressed, but it was nearly four-thirty, and I had a train to catch. I’d have to come up with an idea for a front-page story. But it wasn’t as though I hadn’t done it before. I did it every issue. It could wait.
I’d told Hamish and Rin to meet me at Scuttlebutt at eight o’clock on Saturday night, and we’d head to Sarah Parsons’ party from there. That way I could make sure the initial meeting went reasonably smoothly and Hamish didn’t say anything too offensive.
The café was more crowded at night than it was during the day, with people sipping coffee or drinking fancy designer beers and eating Turkish bread and dips. I caught sight of Hamish sitting at a table near the kitchen. I cringed inwardly. He was wearing a tie, and not in an ironic way. A short-sleeved white shirt was tucked into jeans that, judging from the centre-crease, had been ironed by his mother.
‘Hi,’ I said, walking up to the table and sitting down.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Hamish, looking concerned. ‘It’s the tie, isn’t it?’
Guess my cringe hadn’t been as inward as I’d thought. ‘It does look a bit like your mum picked your outfit.’
Hamish quickly removed the tie. It was a clip-on.
‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘Untuck your shirt. And maybe try messing up your hair. It’s very shiny.’
Hamish complied, and looked marginally better. It was the best I could do without a reality-TV makeover crew.
‘Um,’ said a tiny voice behind my elbow. It was Rin, wearing a very short skirt with white socks pulled above the knee. She looked like a character from Sailor Moon.
‘Hi, Rin!’ I said, standing up. Hamish stood too, and knocked over his chair. Once he’d recovered himself, I introduced him to Rin, and they shyly shook hands.
We all sat down, and I tried to get Rin and Hamish to talk to each other. But they were both pathetic, gazing down at their laps and nodding along to my attempts at conversation. It was like talking with two bobbleheaded dolls. Except at least the dolls usually smiled.
‘So the party should be fun,’ I said, lamely.
Rin and Hamish nodded again. I resisted the urge to groan, and checked my watch.
‘Is Nick coming?’ asked Hamish, with a slightly smarmy look.
Rin’s eyes opened wide. ‘Why would Nick be coming?’ she asked me. ‘Did you guys— Are you dating?’
‘What? No. No, we’re not dating, and no, he’s not coming.’ I glared at Hamish.
‘Oh,’ said Rin, sounding disappointed for me. She lowered her voice and leaned over to me, her eyes sparkling. ‘Maybe you’ll meet someone at the party.’
I opened my mouth to tell her I had neither the intention nor the desire to meet anyone at the party, but found I had neither the energy nor the heart to disappoint her.
‘Right,’ I said instead. ‘Well, I guess we should go.’
‘I might run to the bathroom first,’ said Rin.
While she was gone, Hamish reached into his bag and popped a breath mint into his mouth. I raised my eyebrows.
‘Better to be on the safe side,’ he said. ‘I had a kebab for dinner.’
My plan was going as well as could be expected.
Sarah Parsons’ party was in its early stages when we arrived, which was good. I tended to get bored once everyone was drunk and making out on the couches or vomiting into the bushes.
There was some reasonably inoffensive and not-too-loud pop music playing on the stereo, and people were gathered in clusters, chatting, drinking and eating corn chips.
I gave Sarah a hug (I didn’t really like hugging, but I did realise this was what you were supposed to do at a party) and nearly choked on her perfume. ‘Happy birthday!’ I said, and introduced Hamish and Rin. Sarah may have been a little surprised that I’d brought two dates along – especially one as dorky as Hamish – but she was far too polite to say anything, as I’d expected.
We settled on a couch and I sent Hamish off to get us something non-alcoholic to drink.
‘So,’ I said to Rin. ‘What do you think of Hamish?’
Rin shrugged. ‘He’s very quiet. But he seems … okay.’
‘He told me that he thinks you’re very pretty,’ I lied.
She blushed. ‘Really?’
‘Really. And did you see he has blue eyes and freckles?’
Rin nodded, pleased. ‘This is fun,’ she said. ‘I actually know people here. That girl over there is in the Manga Club at school. I can’t believe I’m at a party! With boys!’
Hamish came back, inexpertly carrying three drinks at once and sploshing lemon squash all over his wrist. Maybe it was time for me to give these two some privacy.
I saw Amy Butler across the room. ‘Can you guys excuse me for a moment?’ I said. ‘I have to go and say hi to someone.’
Amy was sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar and swinging her legs, a plastic cup of something orange in her hand. I hoped it was just Fanta, but I doubted it.
‘Hi Penny!’ Amy gave me a kiss on the cheek. Definitely not just Fanta. ‘Are you feeling better?’
I blinked. ‘What?’
‘It was sooo unfair, you getting disqualified just because you were sick.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That was unfair.’
I thought about the swimming carnival for a moment. A month ago I would have been furious. I would have confronted the p
rincipal and written an editorial for the Gazette. I wouldn’t have rested until I had that Swimming Cup in my hand. But now I couldn’t quite bring myself to care. I took it as evidence that I was growing as a person and felt quite proud.
Amy Butler hiccuped, and I considered the possibility that I might be thrown up on a second time in as many weeks.
‘So there are, like, no cute guys at this party,’ said Amy.
I studied the various boys nearby. James O’Keefe was pressed against Caitlin Reece, his hands creeping up under her T-shirt. Con Stingas and Andrew Rogers were having a competition to see who could fit the most Cheezels in his mouth. Max Wendt was showing Perry Chau a video of something on his phone that was, if Perry’s delighted exclamations were anything to go by, very lewd indeed.
‘No argument here,’ I said.
I glanced over to Rin and Hamish. Rin was waving her hands around animatedly as she explained something to Hamish, who kept nervously licking his lips. I sighed.
‘Sometimes I think that there are no cute boys anywhere,’ I said. ‘They’re all freaks.’
‘There are nice ones,’ said Amy with a secretive smile.
I immediately thought of Nick. ‘Really? Like who?’
Amy screwed up her pretty nose. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Nice guys who are, like … nice. And funny and good-looking.’
Well, Nick fitted all those categories. Most of them, anyway. He was good-looking, and he was certainly funny-peculiar even if he wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny. Was he nice? He’d waited for me after he’d thrown up on my boobs. Although that might be stretching the definition of nice.
‘Do you have anyone in mind?’ I asked. ‘Specifically?’
She gave me a cheeky smile. ‘Maybe,’ she said.
I couldn’t help myself. ‘Would you think about dating someone who was … a bit different?’
‘Like a Year Twelve?’
‘No … more different than that.’
Amy leaned her head towards mine. ‘You know,’ she said softly. ‘I kind of have. There is … someone. And he’s not exactly the kind of guy I thought I would ever like. I mean, he’s pretty cute, but he isn’t very popular.’
Did Amy like Nick? Was that possible? What if they got together? I imagined it for a moment. It’d be a total disaster. He wouldn’t be happy with her. She wasn’t smart enough for him; they’d never be able to have a proper conversation. And that’s what Nick wanted, I was sure of it. He could go on about her long hair and pretty face, but what he really wanted was a soul-mate, right? Someone he could open up to, someone he could be his true self with.
Except … what was Nick’s true self? Now I’d been to his house and met his parents, I wasn’t sure I knew him at all. Would he ever be able to have a conversation with a girl he liked? A relationship? Or was he just too broken?
Why did I even care? I wasn’t writing the article anymore.
‘I’ve seen him watching me,’ said Amy. ‘And at first I was creeped out, because, well, he’s a bit weird. But then I looked at him properly, and I thought … maybe. He has beautiful eyes.’
Nick did have beautiful eyes. Grey and soulful, with very long lashes.
‘So do you think he likes you?’
‘Oh, I’m sure he does,’ said Amy. ‘And I think maybe because he’s quiet, and I’m quiet too, he wouldn’t want to talk all the time the way some boys do.’
It was Nick! She liked Nick! Of course, Nick was quiet because he was shy, and Amy was quiet because she didn’t have much to say. But still. She liked him.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about this.
‘And he’d never cheat on me,’ continued Amy, ‘because I’m so much prettier than most of the girls he’d be able to get.’
‘I don’t know, Amy,’ I said. ‘If he’s so shy, how do you know he’d open up around you?’
‘I just know,’ she said. ‘And anyway, he’s not shy around his friends.’
Wait. ‘His friends?’
‘Yeah, he’s fine with them. Always chatting and laughing. Unless he’s looking at me. With those eyes.’ She sighed happily.
‘Um,’ I said. My Jenga tower of assumptions was swaying. ‘So who is this guy, Amy? With the eyes?’
Amy leaned over and whispered boozily into my ear, ‘Youssef. Youssef Saad. I know he’s a dork, but at least he’s a Year Ten dork, so that’s better than dating a dork in my year. Do you really think I should go for it?’
‘Sure,’ I said, suddenly feeling a bit strange. ‘Could you excuse me? I have to visit the bathroom.’
‘Wait,’ said Amy. ‘Is it true that you’re going out with Nick Rammage?’
‘What?’
‘Kate Pittman said she saw you guys sitting together at lunch, two days in a row. And he never sits with anyone.’
I nearly fell over. People thought Nick and I were dating? ‘I told her it was probably just something for the school paper,’ said Amy. ‘Nick doesn’t really seem your type, and doesn’t he have a girlfriend at another school?’
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘It was just something for the paper.’
I stumbled away. Did it make me a bad person that I was relieved Amy didn’t like Nick? Was it that I didn’t think Amy would make Nick happy? Or didn’t I want him to be happy? And why was I thinking about him so much, anyway? The loveshy project was terminated.
And Youssef Saad was a really nice guy. He’d take care of Amy. Good for her.
Rin was chatting to a few girls over by the TV. She seemed perfectly comfortable, laughing and swaying from side to side with the music. I couldn’t see Hamish anywhere.
I sighed and went back to the couch. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Usually I tried to chat to everyone at a party, in case someone dropped some particularly interesting piece of gossip that I could use in the paper, but my heart just wasn’t in it.
A daggy ’80s song started playing, and someone turned up the sound. Girls squealed and dragged boys into the middle of the room to dance.
‘Hey, Penny.’ Hugh Forward sat down next to me on the couch. Brave, considering how totally he had humiliated himself at last year’s cast party. He was wearing a brown corduroy jacket with a tweed cap. Probably to keep his insane hair under control, but it worked, in a grandpa kind of way.
‘I suppose you’re making some keen observations about the nature of adolescent interaction,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I’ll read about it someday in one of your books.’
He was clearly joking, yet surprisingly close to the truth. ‘Something like that,’ I said.
Hugh cleared his throat.
‘Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof, bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?’
I stared at him.
‘Christina Rossetti,’ he said, a little flustered. ‘I thought about what you said the other day in the library, about how we don’t study much writing by women. And I realised I’d never read any poetry by women, which is weird, because I’ve read a lot of poetry. So I’m rectifying the situation.’
That was unexpected. And … impressive. ‘How are you finding it?’
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I’m loving Christina Rosetti and Emily Dickinson and Dorothy Parker. Anne Sexton’s a little full on, though.’
I nodded knowingly, although I’d actually never read anything by any of them. Perhaps I wasn’t a very good feminist after all? But I really wasn’t a poetry kind of person, although I didn’t want to admit it.
‘I think we spend too much time praising women for how they look,’ Hugh went on, ‘and not enough time praising what they say. However, as you already know I’m a big fan of the things you say, I will also add that you look very nice tonight.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied, although I knew he didn’t mean it. I was wearing jeans and a dark blue shirt. I didn’t see the point of getting dressed up to hang out in some lounge room w
ith a bunch of kids I saw every day at school.
‘I haven’t seen you around much lately,’ Hugh said. ‘You’ve missed a few SRC and Debating meetings.’
Great. He’d come over to guilt-trip me. ‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Really? Busy with what?’ Hugh paused. ‘Or … who?’
What business was it of his? I’d only missed a couple of meetings. ‘Stuff,’ I said, in what I hoped was a dismissive tone of voice. ‘The paper.’
‘Of course. How’s the paper going?’
I shrugged, and idly wondered what I should write about for the lead story. Maybe I should write that editorial on the swimming carnival after all. Although maybe I just needed a new assignment. An investigative feature was still a good idea, even if loveshyness wasn’t the right topic. Maybe I should go undercover, like Nellie Bly. Where could I go? The inner chambers of our local council? A suspiciously steroidy gymnasium? One of those super-religious schools where they don’t let the students read Harry Potter?
I realised Hugh was staring at me. ‘What?’
‘I asked you about the paper, and then you just shrugged and stared off into the distance.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Right, yes. The paper’s great. Just generating some new story ideas at the moment.’
‘Awesome.’
‘Yep.’
‘So are you going to the social? I’m glad we sorted out all that stuff with the decorations budget.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to cover it for the paper.’
I wondered what exactly it was that he wanted. Was it about our upcoming Debating final? Or was he just being polite because I was sitting on my own?
‘Er,’ said Hugh. ‘Do you want to dance?’
‘At the social? I’ll probably be too busy with Gazette stuff.’
‘No, here.’
‘What?’
‘Dance. With me. Now. Here.’ He nodded his head towards the dance floor area.
This was unexpected. And he didn’t seem drunk. ‘Um, no thanks. I don’t really dance.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
We sat uncomfortably for a minute, and I wondered why I’d turned him down. Dancing might have been nice. I tried to remember what we’d been talking about when he tried to tongue me in the ear at last year’s cast party, but couldn’t. I did remember he’d been wearing a grey argyle vest, though. And a cream shirt. It had made him look as though he should have been playing a banjo in a sepia photograph. And I remembered laughing. I think I’d been enjoying our conversation, until he ruined it with the tongue thing. Boys.
Love-shy Page 13
