How to Boost Your Profile

by Meredith Badger

  Then Mum takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. ‘Anya,’ she says, and her voice is very soft now. ‘We’re really sorry about how things have been recently. We forgot what this break-up is like for you and Carolyn. Your dad and I have agreed that we’ll try to do better.’

  Then Dad joins in. ‘But kiddo, you’ve got to promise us something too.’ I know what’s coming, of course, but I let him say it anyway. ‘We’d like you to promise us that you’ll never do anything like this again. No more stealing.’

  I say that I won’t and they both seem satisfied. But I wish there was some way that I could really prove to them just how truly I mean it. How I know that I absolutely won’t ever do anything like this again. I never want to feel like I did in that security office again. But I guess the only way I can show them is over time. Which sucks, because I hate waiting.

  We eat the rest of our pizza in silence. But it’s one of those good silences. As we’re finishing up, Dad says, ‘This is a good house, isn’t it?’

  Mum nods. ‘I bet whoever buys it will be happy here.’ And for the first time, instead of feeling jealous of someone else getting our house, I feel good thinking that maybe they’ll love it as much as I did.

  When it’s time to go, we all leave the house and Mum locks up. I wonder to myself if this is the last time I’ll go inside, and what it’ll be like to drive past when there’s another family living in there, playing in our backyard, marking their own heights on the doorframes. Maybe it won’t be so bad. It’d have to be better than seeing the place look all sad and empty like this.

  Dad goes around to the back of his van, opens it and slides in his toolkit. Then he pulls out a cardboard box and comes over to hand it to Mum. It’s the missing iron.

  ‘Took this by mistake,’ he says with a sheepish grin. ‘Thought it was my old sandwich toaster.’ He kisses the top of my head goodbye. ‘See you on Wednesday, kiddo,’ he says.

  As he drives off, Mum puts her arm around me and hugs me close to her side. We wave until he’s out of sight.

  I have a quiet weekend – basically I have no life now that I’m being punished. Leni calls to invite me over for a DVD night but I make an excuse. I’ve decided not to tell my friends about the whole shoplifting thing. Not yet, anyway. Luckily I’m good at hiding my emotions. I just act super bouncy and no-one has any idea how I’m actually feeling.

  We have maths first thing on Monday morning, and as we’re heading for the classroom my stomach starts doing little flips. Mr Cartright hasn’t said anything to me yet about the maths test but I figure today will be the day. What will happen? With the way my luck is going he’s probably decided to have me expelled, or at least suspended. Just imagine how overjoyed my parents would be about that.

  So I spend the entire lesson stressing about it, but it’s not until the end that Mr Cartright finally hands out our tests. My heart is thumping as I take mine. I’m halfexpecting to see that ninety-five per cent crossed out. But it’s still there and Mr Cartright even smiles at me. At least, I think that’s what he’s trying to do. ‘Well done,’ he says.

  Leni leans over to see. ‘Whoa, Anya!’ she says in her foghorn voice. ‘That’s such an amazing mark!’

  I feel all the blood rush to my face as everyone else turns around, trying to see what I got. ‘It was just a fluke,’ I mutter.

  Mr Cartright turns back around then and gives me a funny look. ‘Anya got the top mark on this test,’ he announces. ‘Which just shows what you can do if you put in a little effort.’

  The bell goes and I’m just about to walk out when Mr Cartright stops me. ‘I’d like a quick word, please.’

  My stomach turns over. ‘I’ll catch up with you guys,’ I call to Leni and Soph, and they nod and shoot me sympathetic looks.

  ‘So,’ says Mr Cartright when everyone’s gone. ‘You’ll be glad to know that I believe you didn’t cheat. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  I nod, but there’s something about Mr Cartright’s voice that makes me think there’s more to come. Something I might not like.

  ‘Do you want to know why?’ he asks, and without waiting for an answer he produces a computer printout from a stack of papers on his desk. My insides lurch sideways as I take in the picture. It’s a frizzy-haired girl wearing a baggy, cacky-brown uniform, holding up a bunch of cardboard medals and grinning like an idiot. Along the bottom is written, Mathlete of the Year!

  I want to snatch that piece of paper and rip it into a thousand pieces. ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Your old teacher, Miss Smith, emailed it to me,’ says Mr Cartright calmly. ‘I rang up your primary school after our chat on Friday. Miss Smith was more than happy to tell me about what a great student you were. In fact, she raved to me about how gifted you were in maths.’

  It feels like a pretty sneaky thing for Mr Cartright to do – ringing my old school like that. But Mr Cartright doesn’t look ashamed. He’s looking pretty proud of himself, actually. He leans back in his chair and locks his hands across his chest.

  ‘Things are going to change from now on, Anya,’ he says. ‘There’ll be no more pretending you don’t get it. No more just scraping by in tests. And no brushing your good marks off as flukes.’ He puts a few sheets of paper down in front of me, covered with maths problems. ‘I’m going to start giving you extra homework too and there’s also a form for an upcoming maths competition that – ’

  ‘I’m not entering any maths competitions,’ I say firmly, cutting him off. ‘Or doing extra work. I won’t deliberately do badly anymore, but I’m not doing anything else.’ There’s no way I’m letting him turn me into a favourite.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ snaps Mr Cartright. ‘I’m not letting this go.’

  But I’m not backing down either. There’s a moment when we just glare at each other. And then I have an idea.

  One of those ideas that appear when you’re desperate. ‘What if I come up with some kind of extra maths thing on my own?’ I say. ‘Like, a project or something?’ I’m not really sure what I mean – maybe helping Dad with his insulation stuff – but I basically just want Mr Cartright to get off my case. And I definitely don’t want him enrolling me in maths competitions. I can tell he thinks I’m trying to get out of it but finally he says, ‘Well, you come up with some ideas and we’ll discuss it.’

  He lets me go, but just as I’m opening the door he calls me again. ‘If you don’t come up with an alternative project, you will be enrolled in the maths competition, okay?’

  I don’t doubt for a second that he means it too.

  When I finally meet up with my friends they are discussing the social, which is only five days away now. ‘Mum says we can all meet at my house,’ says Leni, ‘and she’ll drive us there together.’ I don’t want to talk about the social, but at some stage I’ll have to break the news that I won’t be there.

  ‘Actually, I’m not going now after all,’ I say, shrugging like the whole thing is no big deal.

  ‘Oh no!’ says Leni.

  ‘Why?’ says Soph. ‘Is this because of Ethan again?’

  ‘No, it’s not because of him,’ I say quickly. ‘I just don’t want to go because I know it will be completely lame. I’m actually pretty surprised that you guys want to go.’

  Then Soph looks at me in that way she does. Like she’s a bloodhound, sniffing out clues. ‘What’s going on, Anya? You’ve been acting really weird.’

  ‘No, I haven’t!’ I say.

  ‘Yes, you have,’ corrects Soph. ‘You’ve been doing that super-chirpy thing that you always do when you’re upset but don’t want to tell us why.’

  The good thing about friends is that they know how you’re feeling, no matter how hard you try to hide it. The bad thing is that you can’t get away with anything! I flop down onto the grass and close my eyes, because then I can’t see my friends’ faces when they find out what a bad person I am. A thief.

  ‘I’m not going because I’m not allowed to go, all right? I’m not allowed to do a
nything – no movies, no shopping trips. Nothing for at least two months. Which is just as well because Mum and Dad cut off my allowance anyway.’

  Leni and Soph are both quiet for a minute, letting this all soak in.

  ‘What happened?’ asks Leni, and her voice is full of concern. Then she squishes up next to me on the grass. ‘Go on,’ she says. ‘Tell us.’

  When I don’t answer, Soph squishes up on my other side so it’s like I’m trapped in a sandwich. A friendwich, I guess.

  So I tell them. The whole story. All about the Charm Bra and how it felt like I was meant to have it, but I didn’t have enough money. And then about the shoplifting stuff and all about being caught and how bad it made me feel when Mum was so upset. My friends listen in the way I like people to listen – without making any shocked noises or interrupting or anything. Just listening. But because I’ve got my eyes shut, I’ve got no idea what they think about all this. Whether they’re shocked or they hate my guts or whatever.

  When I’ve finished, I feel two opposite things at once.

  I’m relieved that it’s out there, but I’m also really, really scared about what my friends will say. So I say something first. ‘I guess you must think I’m a terrible person now, huh?’

  I feel Leni sit up and I open my eyes. She doesn’t look like she hates me, but she does look serious. ‘Anya Saunders,’ she says. ‘You are so not a terrible person. You are one of the most generous people I’ve ever met. You’re always lending out your stuff, or giving it away.’

  Then Soph joins in. ‘Leni’s right,’ she says. ‘And you always help out with stuff too – like when you came on that “March for the Forests” with me and Mum last month. I know you didn’t really want to go, but you did it anyway. That meant a lot.’

  I feel my eyes starting to go all blurry. ‘So you guys don’t think I’m some manky thief?’ I say, my voice catching in my throat.

  Leni bear-hugs me. ‘No way! You’re Anya the Amazing,’ she says.

  Soph nods. ‘So you made a dumb mistake,’ she says. ‘Everyone does that.’ Then she places her hand across her chest and presses it. ‘But you’re good in here, you know?’

  I’m seriously close to losing it now. ‘Gee thanks, guys, for making me cry,’ I say, trying to make a joke of it. But the thing is that even though I’m teary, I feel lighter. Like my friends’ words have lifted me up. Given me a boost.

  ‘If you’re not going to the social, then I’m not going either,’ Leni declares suddenly.

  Soph nods in agreement. ‘We’ll just come around to your place and watch a DVD instead.’

  This shocks me out of crying. ‘No!’ I say. ‘You guys have to go. I’m not allowed to have DVD nights anyway, remember? I want you to go and tell me what it’s like.’ I don’t tell them that I’m actually hoping they’ll finally meet some guys they like, and my triple-dating dreams will come true.

  My friends still look unsure. ‘Please go,’ I say. ‘I need you to be there. Because if you see Ethan slow-dancing with Hannah you have to jump in between them, okay?’ In the end they laugh and say that they’ll go after all. Just for me.

  Working at the doctor’s clinic turns out to be not as bad as I was expecting. I don’t have to deal with the patients, which is a big relief. There’s a little room out the back where all the files and stuff are kept. On my first afternoon there, Mum handed me a huge stack of medical journals. ‘These all need to be filed,’ she told me. And basically that’s what I’ve been doing every day. It’s not just as simple as bunging them in on a shelf, either – I have to look through them all to see if there are any articles that might be useful for Shelley. Mum said to mark anything that’s about old people, young mothers or teenagers, as these are the people who come to our clinic the most. I have to mark anything good with a Post-it note and leave it for Shelley to read.

  I find the journals kind of fascinating. I mean, some of the images are really gross, but it’s almost hard to look away. And the articles about teenagers are actually pretty interesting.

  One afternoon, as I’m flipping through a journal, I come to an article called Teen Concern: Breast Abnormalities.

  It’s all about how teenage girls worry a lot about whether what’s happening to their bodies is the same as what’s happening to everyone else. It says that teenagers are often too embarrassed or too worried to talk to anyone about it.

  The article has some examples and when I read example number three, my heart practically stops. One of the patients the doctor had seen was a girl who was convinced there was something wrong with her because she’d found a blue vein on her left breast! The doctor reassured her patient that this was totally normal, and told her all about the different ways breasts could look as they were developing. The article describes how her patient had burst into tears because she was so relieved. The funny thing is that reading this, I feel like bursting into tears myself.

  It’s weird to think of someone else worrying about exactly the same thing as me. It’s good in a way, I guess, but it also makes me feel dumb for not talking to someone about it before – it would’ve saved me a whole lot of worry.

  I am so engrossed in reading that I don’t hear Shelley come in. She glances over my shoulder. ‘That looks interesting,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It is.’ I feel a bit embarrassed because she’s caught me reading about breast abnormalities, but since she’s already seen it I work up the guts to ask her something. ‘There’s a girl in here who saw her doctor because she was worried something was wrong with her, but it turns out she’s fine. Does that happen a lot?’ I say it very casually so Shelley won’t guess it’s got anything to do with me.

  ‘All the time,’ says Shelley, pouring herself a glass of water at the sink.

  ‘And do you get annoyed with people like that – for wasting your time?’ I ask.

  Shelley looks at me in surprise. ‘Of course not!’ she says. ‘It’s always good to be able to tell someone that everything’s fine. It’s much better when people feel they can come to me with their worries, rather than stressing about it in private.’

  I close the journal, while Shelley drinks her water.

  ‘It must be good,’ I find myself saying. ‘Helping people the way you do.’ Up to this point I figured being a doctor was mostly about trying not to be sneezed on. But it would be great to know everything Shelley knows about the body – to understand what is or isn’t concerning, and know how to treat any problems.

  ‘It is good,’ agrees Shelley. ‘And interesting.’ Then she smiles at me. ‘I know we joke about it, but have you ever actually thought about becoming a doctor yourself? I think you’d make a good one.’

  I shrug. ‘Well, maybe,’ I say. And for the first time in a long time, I’m semi-serious about it.

  I end up catching the bus home on my own that evening because Mum is working late. Carolyn’s door is closed which makes me wonder if Max is in there. I go to the kitchen and pour myself some orange juice. It’s only when I’m heading back to my room that I hear a weird noise coming from Carolyn’s room. It sounds like crying.

  I sneak up closer and press my ear against her door. Yep, someone is definitely crying in there. But it’s not like there’s anything I can do about it. When Carolyn’s door is closed, I’m not welcome in her room. I’m not really welcome in there when it’s open either. I sneak back to my room and try to get started on my homework.

  But the noise of Carolyn’s crying comes right through the wall and it’s not showing any sign of stopping. It’s pretty distracting. Eventually I put down my pen, go back down the hall and fling open Carolyn’s door. I do it fast so there’s no time to chicken out.

  Carolyn is sprawled face-down on her bed. She looks up at me and her face is all red and blotchy.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I say.

  Carolyn buries her face into her pillow. ‘Go away,’ she says in this muffled voice.

  I start feeling cross. I mean, if anyone should be crying, it’s m
e. I’m the one who got busted shoplifting. I’m the one who was dumped for not being smart enough. And I’m the one who doesn’t get to go to the school social. But I’m not blubbering away in my room, am I?

  Being cross makes me braver. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I say, folding my arms. ‘Not until you tell me what you’re crying about.’

  Carolyn sits up, and for a moment I think she’s about to blast me. But then she kind of crumples. She puts her hands over her face and says something that sounds like, ‘Max broke up with me.’ Except it can’t be that.

  ‘What did you say?’ I ask, taking a step closer.

  Carolyn takes her hands away, and this time when she speaks there’s no chance I’ve heard it, wrong. ‘Max broke up with me. This afternoon. He said I was getting too serious.’

  For a minute I just stand there, with my mouth hanging open. I never ever thought Carolyn and Max would split up. I thought they’d be together forever. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s … terrible.’

  And then Carolyn starts crying even harder than before. She turns into a crying fountain, spouting tears in every direction. Because I’m not sure what else to do, I go and sit next to her, all the time waiting for her to yell at me to get out of her room. But she doesn’t. Then I even work up enough courage to put my arm around her for a hug. I can’t remember the last time Carolyn let me get this close, let alone let me hug her. Not since before Dad left, I think. I sit there for a while, trying to think of something to say that will cheer her up. But what can I possibly say?

  After a few minutes, the crying eases off a bit and then eventually stops, although her breath is still all hiccuppy.