by Henry, Max
“Adjusting to a new school is all,” I say with a tight smile.
“Sure.” She doesn’t buy it. “I saw you were paired with Tuck for your last class.”
I lift an eyebrow at her.
She crosses her lean legs. “I had Animal Husbandry next door to you.” I can’t help but notice her Western-style boots. “Don’t pay attention to that conceited arse. He’s used to getting away with everything since his parents never show up to the school’s requested remediations.”
“How do you know all that?” I step to the side to dump my used utensils in the sink.
“You notice a bit when people leave you alone. They forget you’re there after a while.”
Her statement at first impression seems to be a sad one, and yet she sits there with a content smile on her face like being ignored is how she likes it.
I’m fascinated.
“Hey, could you help me with one more thing?”
“Sure.”
Maggie’s a bit of a tomboy, it seems, but she’s also quite pretty in an alternative way. I get the feeling I could trust her judgement.
“Can you help me shop for some better boots?” I gesture to the ruined pair on my feet.
With a laugh, she nods. “Course I can. When do you want to do it?”
“Now,” I groan.
She laughs again, shaking her head so that her layered shoulder-length hair sways. “After school then. Have you got your own car?”
Ashamed, I shake my head tightly, opting to look at the floor.
“That’s cool. I’ll give you a lift.”
My head snaps up, and I frown at her. “Thanks.” I can’t believe it’s no big deal for her.
I’m sixteen, and obviously from a wealthy—well, what was wealthy—family. Doesn’t she wonder why I have no ride?
“Meet you at the gates?”
I nod. “Sure. I’ll let my brother know not to expect me.”
“Cool.”
Huh.
I guess friends can come from the most unlikely places.
“What do you know about this girl?” Colt eyes Maggie with a narrowed gaze as we walk through the stone arch toward the front gates.
“I know she’s the only one who hasn’t mocked me about our upbringing,” I say. “Well, in a bad way.”
Colt lifts an eyebrow an gives a little hum. “Right.”
“Hey. You said yourself it’s easiest to get info from her type.” Not that information on the top dogs of this school is my main interest today.
I need the right boots. Damn. A girl can’t expect to get ahead when she can’t even get the fashion right.
“Message me if you need rescuing,” he teases before leaning in to give me a peck on the cheek.
I wave Colt off and then close the final yards between Maggie and myself.
“Who’s he?” she asks, eyeballing Colt’s retreating form. “Boyfriend?”
“Ew! No,” I cry. “My brother.”
Maggie nods, lips downturned at the corner in approval. “Didn’t realise you had one. The girls only bitched about you.” She tugs at her bottom lip with her teeth. “He’s hot.”
“Again. Ew.” I steer her toward the road with a stiff finger to the back of her shoulder. “Focus.”
“Right. Boots.” She rakes her blackened eyes over me. “How much you want to spend?”
“Whatever they cost,” I state with a flippant flick of my hair. “I mean, I’m not worried about the price.”
I totally am. I have four hundred dollars left of my leftover allowance. After that? There’s nothing.
“No worries.”
I follow Maggie down the roadside, well aware of the stares I receive from the other kids as we pass by their ridiculously large trucks. To my horror, we stop beside a sedan with paint peeling away where the door has been hit by something.
“You, um, need to get a dent fixed, huh?” I point to the glaring blemish on the pale blue paint job.
Maggie leans around the car and shrugs. “Yeah. I keep forgetting about that.”
“Do I ask what happened?”
She unlocks the vehicle with the fob and gestures for me to get in. “Probably make you less nervous if you don’t.”
I lift the handle and then fold myself carefully onto the fabric upholstered seat. Maggie drops into her side, flinging her bag over the back.
“You can toss your things on the back seat if you like.”
I twist and take in the array of belongings that spill into the footwell. “Do you have a brother too?”
“No.” She stares at me as though confused why I would think so while she cranks the engine.
“Oh. It’s just there are a rugby ball and boots amongst your stuff.” I wave a hand at the filth over her seat.
“Nah. That’s mine.”
The girl is oblivious to the raised eyebrow I direct her way. “Pardon?”
“Girls first fifteen.” She smiles before reversing out of the park. “I’ve played since I was, like, six or something.”
“The girls play rugby here?” I glance out my window as Maggie puts the car into drive and scowl at the lude gesture Johnson makes.
He leans on the back of a crisp white truck; free hand raised to his lips where he flickers his tongue between the V of his fingers.
He may hate me now, but I vow that by the end of the school year I’ll have that boy wishing he’d paid better attention to what he could have had. I’ve done it before—I’ll do it again.
Maggie’s car can only be described as oozing character. If I were to choose any other words, I’d probably question myself as to why I agreed to get in the death trap. We arrive at the main street with a shudder that I’m sure didn’t come factory with the engine, and ease into a park outside the café I saw the girl on the bike weekend before last.
“So, um, who were the girls you mentioned spoke about me?” I climb from the car, moving around to the hood.
Maggie takes a seat on the vehicle, leaning back on her heels, and produces a pack of smokes from God-only-knows-where. “Bitches.” She pulls a stick out, and then lights it, leaving the packet in full view on the hood.
I glance around, concerned for who might see us. And then I fact check the hell out of myself by remembering we don’t have any friends in this town. Me and Colt or Mum and Dad.
“Why do you want to know about them?” Maggie asks.
I shrug, returning my attention to her. “Curious.” Automatically, I reach for a strand of my hair and twirl it around my finger.
Maggie laughs. “You’re like every cheesy, rich girl movie there is.”
“Am not.”
“Am too.” She takes another pull on her cigarette. “It was only a couple of the Moto-Hoes. I overhead them in the gym locker room.”
“Moto-Hoes?” I step to the side to avoid her exhale.
“Yeah. Four bitches who ride motocross together. They’re like—” She winds her hand. “—the queens of the school or some shit. Mandy’s dad owns the John Deere dealership and a few other businesses. They’re loaded.”
“Really? Would I have met her? Mandy?”
Maggie shakes her head. “Not until Monday. She’s away at some competition.”
“Oh. Okay.” I pause to make it seem as though I merely make conversation, not as though I’m dying for more gossip, which I am. “Who are the others?”
“You’ve got Dee,” Maggie answers, counting off on her fingers, “Amber, and Cate. Dee is a loud brunette. Bitchy as fuck. She usually hangs out with Amber. You’ve probably seen her; short, white blonde, aggressive as all get out?”
“Yeah, I know her.” Explains a bit about the attitude then. “And Cate, was it?”
“Mm.” She stubs the smoke out on the road. “The mouse of the bunch. She’s in there for who her family is, from what I can tell. She’s too much of a prude otherwise.”
“What makes them so special aside from money?” In other words, what do I have to contend with?
M
aggie frowns, pocketing her pack as she stands. “Well, Mandy is a natural winner. Like, I remember her taking home ribbons for everything when we were in primary together.” She leads us onto the pavement, and towards a store I don’t recognise the name of. “Dee? I guess she gets what she wants. She won’t take no for an answer. And Amber?” Maggie laughs, pushing the shop door open. “She’s the kind of crazy you want on side, not against you.”
A bell signals our entry, the small tin ringer singing over the timber-framed door. Maggie lifts a hand to the shop assistant in greeting and then steers left through the various steel racks of items towards where shoes hang displayed on the wall.
I’m pretty sure we pass by a whole section dedicated to fence stuff.
“What style are you after?” She lifts her hand to a pair of Jodhpur boots. “Crossover riding and everyday wear? Fashion and riding?” She gestures to what I would call cowgirl shoes. “Or boring and practical like these.” She finishes with a basic pair of lace-up hiking style boots.
“Fashion.” When the hell am I ever going to need to ride a damn horse?
“Colour choice?”
“A rich brown.” I narrow my eyes, surveying what’s on display.
“With contrasting accents, or all the same leather?”
So many choices. “What do you suggest?”
“Contrast.” Maggie nods in agreement with herself. “It makes it look less like you wear gumboots.”
I frown.
“Gumboots. You know, rain boots?” Her eyes go wide. “You didn’t know what gumboots are?”
“I was never allowed to play in the rain,” I explain with a dismissive shake of my head. “My mother said it would ruin my hair, all the pollution in city showers.”
Maggie blinks slowly and then opens her mouth as though to say something. She thinks better of it and reaches for an umber pair of Western boots with pale salmon stitching.
“Ariat. They’re this season’s in thing. And as a bonus, they’re fucking comfortable.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Especially after that enthusiastic remark.
Accepting the offered shoe, I make myself at home on a mirrored stool and tug off my ruined Rossis. The new boot seems too tight at the ankle, refusing to slide past my heel.
“Here.” Maggie passes a steel shoe horn. “They’re tight until the leather softens and moulds to your foot.”
“Thanks.” I dip the metal stick into the boot and fail to get the shoe on, nearly cleaning myself up with the shoe horn instead when it flies out.
“Christ,” she mutters, reaching for the horn. “Like this. Hold it there too.”
Like a helpless child, I allow Maggie to help me get the shoe on. My cheeks flame when I rise to inspect the style in the angled mirror.
They actually look quite good. “These are nice.”
“I have them in black.”
I glance at Maggie, at her dark denim and even darker hair. Figures.
“This was an easy trip then. How much are they?”
“They’re three-twenty.”
Breathe, Lacey. That’s most of what I have left, but that’s okay. These are an important tool.
“What are waiting for then?” I look around for the shop assistant. “When are they coming to size me?”
Maggie tips her head a little. “That one fits, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. But I need them to check the fit and bring me the pair.”
Once more, she blinks slowly, a deep breath causing her shoulders to rise. “Yeah, we don’t do that here Scrooge McDuck. We take that one up to the counter, and then he gets the box.”
“Oh.” Okay.
I drop to my arse to remove the sample.
It turns out the sample is my new shoe. The shop assistant, whose name I learn is Terry, retrieves the matching boot from behind the counter, and then puts the display shoe that Lord only knows how many people have tried on in the box too.
I’ll need to thoroughly steam-clean or disinfect them somehow.
We’re a mere drive from Riverbourne, and yet, life in the country is a whole other world.
I’ve never felt more like an alien in my life.
“What on earth are those?” Mum stares at my feet as though I’ve spawned chicken claws overnight.
“Boots.”
“Who are you trying to be? Miranda whatshername?” She waves a hand between us.
I can only assume she means the country singer. “It’s practical for what we do at school.”
“And what’s that?” she scoffs. “Have a hoe-down?”
I snatch a muesli bar for breakfast and then book it to Colt’s SUV. “Ready when you are, bro!”
“And now she talks like one of them too,” Mum exclaims, spinning back to where her coffee brews on the kitchen counter.
One of them.
From what I learned yesterday, they’re not unlike what I’m used to; they just look a little different. Rich and entitled kids are all the same at the core, no matter what their after-school hobbies may or may not be.
“She’s still going off in there,” Colt says with a laugh as he drops onto the driveway. “Must admit you almost look like one of them now.”
“Who? The other girls at the school?” Did I not before in this mundane uniform?
He shakes his head, unlocking the car for us. “No.” We climb inside. “One of those Maverick bitches.”
“What is with all the names around here?”
“What other names are there?” He starts the car with a curious frown.
“The Moto-Hoes.”
He stops the car, foot on the brake, while he howls with laughter. “Really?”
“Or so I’m told. They all ride dirt bikes.”
“No, sis. That’s the Mavericks. Moto-Hoes must be what the commoners call them.” We move again. “Who told you that?”
“Maggie.”
“Figures.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Strangely I feel defensive of my new shopping buddy.
“It means, the guys are pretty sure she bats for the same team.”
“And that makes her inferior, how?”
He levels me with a take-no-shit stare. “How on earth could she keep a bloodline going without dick?”
“You talk about her like she’s a prize cow.”
I don’t catch what he mutters in response, but I get the feeling I’m better off not knowing.
We spend the remainder of the ride to school discussing our subjects and the teachers’ quirks. To my surprise, Colt makes a bold move and parks his Explorer in a space near the gates.
“Are you sure you should be here?”
“Why not?” He shrugs, killing the engine. “It’s a free space and nobody’s name is engraved on a plaque at the head from what I can see.”
I flatten my lips in a line and sigh, reaching for the door. “If you say so.”
He chuckles, exiting the car as I do.
We get a few curious stares on our walk toward the gates, and my suspicions on it being over our choice of parking space are proven right when a loud blast of an air horn behind us freezes me in my tracks. Colt hesitates, turning to see why I’ve stopped rather than what the noise is over.
The large white truck from yesterday sits behind Colt’s SUV.
“Hey, rich boy,” Johnson hollers out the driver’s window. “Move your fucking car.”
Colt folds his arms over his chest and stares him down. “No.”
I remain with my back to the commotion and set a hand against Colt’s forearm. “Move it for today. You could bring up the lack of parking with the administration.”
“He doesn’t own a public road, sis. He has no rights to it.” To my frustration, Colt pulls from my touch and strides toward Johnson.
I drop my shoulders and sigh, and then turn with a fierce look of support on my face. He might be making a mountain out of a molehill, but Colt is my brother and blood stick together.
“Find somewhere else to
put your fucking farm wagon,” Colt hollers.
Two guys, I don’t know the name of, jump off the back. They’re huge. As in, enormous. Like, could tear a phonebook in two enormous. What the hell do they feed them around here?
“Move your car, bro,” the first orders. He’s solid in the shoulders. A Maori boy with legs the thickness of small trees.
“I trust you can work this problem out between yourselves,” Colt leers. “Surely between the lot of you, there’s enough combined brain power to come up with a solution.”
My breath lodges in my throat. The second guy from the back of the truck—a solid guy with black hair and darker eyes—looks as though he can’t decide which limb to rip from Colt’s body first.
“Come on, sis.” Colt collects me by the arm on his way past. “Let’s get to class.”
The heat Johnson dishes is enough to melt the tarmac. “Henare! Elders! Let’s go.”
Colt and I walk through the ornate gates to the sound of rubber squealing on the road. I want to look back, mostly to see who else was in the vehicle with him, but I know there’s no point in torturing myself over the possible fallout. I’m better off walking into each of my classes today with the belief that I’ve got a free pass and letting any repercussions be a nasty surprise.
Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss… and the only way to uphold your confidence.
“They’re gutless,” Colt scoffs. “What the hell do you think they can do about it? Call the police?”
Could be an issue if one of their parents is on the force I suppose, be he’s right otherwise. It’s a parking space. They have no title over it.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” a guy laughs out as he jogs past us in the opposite direction.
I frown, yet we continue walking toward our homerooms. Two more people join the other guy, heading for the front gates. Then four.
“Why do I get the feeling I should be concerned about this?” Colt drawls.
He stops, as do I, and groans, head tossed back.
We turn back. Damn it.
I take Colt’s satchel from him, allowing him to move faster toward the growing crowd. My heart thunders against the smooth leather exterior, the death grip I have on the bag the only thing keeping me from freaking out when I reach the back of the mob.
