Smart Girls Don't Wear Mascara

by Cecily Paterson

  Annie wasn’t worried about how she looked, I thought to myself. And she got the prize. I will too.

  And then I looked around for reinforcements. It was nearly time for the exam to start, and I hadn’t caught a single glimpse of Buzz or Jessie in the crowd yet. I stood on tiptoes and tried to look over heads, hoping to catch sight of Jessie’s blonde plait and Buzz’s dark long hair. There was nothing. I hopped onto a picnic table to get a better view, but a parent gave me a look that said, Get down, evil child, so I moved to the other side of the garden area, just in case they were over there.

  Nothing.

  I turned back to where the cars were parked, hoping to see a ute or a gold four-wheel drive pulling in. No one came. And by the time I turned back again, there was a man with a suit, tie and name badge on, welcoming us all into the school hall.

  ‘Children, you can come in now,’ he said. ‘Parents, you can wait outside, or go into town and get a coffee.’ I saw some mums move towards their cars, and a few more sit themselves firmly down on the picnic tables.

  With a final twist of my head, I reluctantly followed everyone else into the hall. My last hope was that Buzz and Jessie were coming together and had been held up by road works on the mountain. They’d rush in together, five minutes late, apologising.

  But it never happened.

  Instead, everyone took out their pens, calculators and ballpoint pens, turned over their exam papers and set to work. The room was quiet except for the occasional sniff or cough, with the constant rustle of paper and scratching of pens.

  Maths was the first section, followed by English comprehension. By the time I’d done the first question, Buzz and Jessie had disappeared out of my mind. Instead, I was concentrating hard, focusing on perimeter and the time a train can travel in three hours if it’s going at 175 kilometres per hour.

  The first question was easy. So was the second question. I checked to see what was coming up and saw that the questions didn’t even start getting hard until about number 10 of 16. I smiled to myself and looked around to see what other people thought. I was surprised to see that, next to me, one girl’s face was white with fear, her hand shaking as she wrote. Across the other side, a boy was looking blankly at his paper, hardly moving.

  I made a yay, Abby! face to myself and kept going, shooting through the questions and giving myself a mental high-five every time I finished one. I knew most people wouldn’t call a test ‘fun’, but I couldn’t think of a more satisfying thing to do than taking a challenging question, solving it, and telling everyone what you now knew.

  I wrote, scribbled and thought for an hour and a half and then, when the man said to put pens down, I wrote my name, Abby Smart, firmly across the front of my paper.

  Test. Taken. And, I thought, I did pretty awesome.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said suit-man from the front when all the papers were picked up and shuffled together in a pile. ‘If that is the only test you’re doing, you can leave now. If you’re doing a music audition, you can get your things and follow me.’

  Most of the now-not-so-neat-and-tidy test takers shuffled out the door, some wiping away tears and others looking nearly faint. Hugs were being given outside and I smiled to myself. That was easy. This is the big one.

  ‘Okay. There should be nine of you,’ said the teacher, reading from a list of names and counting heads. ‘Follow me, please.’

  We went out a back door and through a corridor with big rooms opening out on each side. Some had pianos in them and I saw a whole shelf of guitars in another. I shivered, with excitement this time—Dad’s jumper was doing its job. The music department. Eeeek.

  We stopped in a small room with seats lined up along the wall. On a table opposite was a jug of juice and a tray of sandwiches.

  ‘Make yourselves comfortable, everyone,’ said the teacher. Now that we were closer I could hear he had a tiny lisp in his voice. ‘You’ll wait here until you’re called into the audition room.’ He pointed across the hall to another half-open door. I could see wooden floorboards and wall-to-ceiling mirrors. My stomach twisted up. I couldn’t even look at the sandwiches. In fact, no one touched them at all. We all just sat down and watched each other’s faces get whiter and whiter.

  ‘Nervous?’ I asked the girl next to me. She had long brown hair and was dressed in boots and a felt hat. She gave me a look like, What are you even talking to me for? I shut my mouth and stared straight in front of me, waiting for someone to call my name.

  It took a long time.

  A boy with a guitar went first. The audition room door closed behind him, we heard a low grumbling of conversation, then some strumming and a muffled singing voice. He sounded good. But it didn’t go for very long. He got about two lines in and then stopped. The door opened again. He came out, grasping his guitar and walking fast, right out of the building.

  I looked at hat-girl with wide eyes, as if to say, Is that all they want? Just two lines? She stared right back at me, but this time it was with alarm in her eyes.

  ‘Is that it?’ she said.

  ‘Maybe he was bad.’

  ‘I seriously hope so.’

  They called another name, then another and then at about number five the girl next to me went in. She got about four lines of her song out before they stopped her and she walked stiffly down the corridor to the exit. I flashed a quick good luck at her with my eyes as she went and then I heard my own name.

  ‘Abby Smart.’

  I nearly couldn’t get up.

  I might just go home, said my brain. I’m not sure I want to do this. Maybe singing isn’t such a good thing to get into anyway.

  ‘Abby Smart?’ They called me again.

  Just give up. You’re not as good as you think you are.

  I stamped my foot. And then I slapped my own cheek. It’s what you’re supposed to do to get someone out of shock. It’s kind of weird when you do it to yourself. But I was past caring about being weird or not.

  This is your chance, I told myself. You want to sing. You’ve just got to be brave. You’ve got to be like Annie and take a risk.

  And then I made myself stand up and walk, in a dreamy daze, out the door, through the hall, and into the audition room. Where I immediately woke up.

  The light was enough to do it. One wall was completely made up of windows and the sun was streaming in through the white blinds onto the polished wooden floor and reflecting in the mirrors. It was the most beautiful room I’d ever seen. I kind of gasped and looked around with an open mouth until I realised that in front of me were four adults sitting behind a table.

  ‘Are you Abby Smart?’ a lady asked. She had grey hair in a bun and a burnt dark yellow jumper draped over her arms. She was shiny and polished; neat and tidy too. But on her, it didn’t look snooty like it did on the exam kids. It looked right. And glamorous, I heard a tiny voice in my brain whisper, which kind of made me do a double take because ... glamorous? I didn’t think I’d ever used the word in my life.

  ‘Um, yes,’ I said. And then I took a deep breath and stood up straighter. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘What are you going to perform for us today?’ asked the man next to the bun-lady. He was young, plump and wearing a suit.

  ‘“Maybe” from the musical Annie,’ I said more quietly than I would normally. ‘I’ve been practising it with my singing teacher.’

  The woman, third in the row, raised her eyebrows. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Francesca?’ I said. ‘Um, Francesca Bodoni. She lives in Kangaroo Valley.’

  I saw a look pass between the people at the table.

  The man on the end smiled at me. ‘She’s a very good singer. Why don’t you get started? When you feel comfortable.’

  He waved his hand towards the end of the room and I saw for the first time that there was a piano there, with a woman sitting at it. She reached out her
hand towards me and I realised she wanted me to give my music to her. I half ran down the room and put it in her hand before stumbling back to the middle.

  ‘Take your time,’ said the first lady. ‘When you’re ready.’

  I took a breath in, told my stomach to relax and imagined I was back in Francesca’s cottage, standing by her piano. Perfectly happy. And then I nodded, the pianist began to play and I sang.

  It was gentle at first, and then it became plaintive, and then joyful finally, and suddenly I realised that I had sung nearly the whole song and no one had stopped me. In a tiny fit of panic, I opened my eyes wide, looked around and sang the last line, but badly.

  There was a pause and the man on the end picked up his pen, wrote something on his papers and looked up at me.

  ‘Thank you, Abby. That’s all. We’ll let you know the results in a few weeks.’

  ‘Oh, um, thank you,’ I said, and I went to go but behind me a voice called out, ‘Don’t forget your music.’ I looked around in shock and rushed back, plucking the paper out of the accompanist’s hands and then literally ran back out of the room, my face red and my hands white.

  ‘How’d you do?’ said Dad, when I finally found the car, pulled open the door and flumped myself into the front seat. I could hardly answer him.

  ‘Okay. I think.’

  ‘Was it hard?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. And I really didn’t. The only thing I knew was that I didn’t want to talk about it.

  Dad wasn’t much of a question asker, which normally bugged me when I had something big and exciting to tell, but it worked well that afternoon. I was kind of dreading Mum’s onslaught when we got home, though. She’d want to know everything, which was fine normally, when I’d want to tell her everything and in massive detail. For some reason though, today, I just couldn’t.

  But I didn’t have to.

  Because as soon as we got home, Miles shot out of the house at full pelt, running towards the car, screaming something.

  ‘I know something you don’t know!’ he sang at me, but Mum came behind and shushed him.

  ‘Miles! Let me tell her.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ I said, slowly. ‘Something good?’

  ‘You’re going to be so excited,’ Mum said. ‘Mrs Nickell just rang up.’

  ‘Mrs Nickell? Why?’

  ‘You’ve got the part!’ yelled Miles.

  ‘What part?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ve got the main part in the choral festival,’ said Mum. ‘The solo, it’s yours.’

  Chapter 20

  I danced for the rest of the day and then through Sunday, even though Mum and Dad dragged us to an all-day permaculture workshop two hours’ drive away.

  ‘Can I phone Buzz and Jessie when we get home?’ I asked as we sped back along the highway, the sky blazing pink and orange.

  ‘There won’t be time,’ said Mum. ‘You’ll see them tomorrow anyway.’ She made a thinking kind of frown on her forehead. ‘How did they find the scholarship test? Was it hard?’

  ‘They didn’t go,’ I said. ‘Or at least, I didn’t see them. They may have come late and I just missed them.’

  Mum’s frown went deeper. ‘You said they were doing it too, didn’t you?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what happened. It was weird. They were both like, “Yeah, we’re definitely going to be there”. Maybe the car broke down.’

  ‘Did you see Elizabeth in the test room?’ Dad said, half-turning from the driver’s seat. ‘I had a coffee with Dave while we were waiting.’

  ‘Elizabeth?’

  ‘Elizabeth Wilson, silly.’ Dad made a face at me, like, What other Elizabeth could you be talking about? ‘The Wilsons. From camping.’

  ‘Why would Bor … I mean, Elizabeth be doing the test for Baker?’ I asked. My voice sounded a bit harsher than I intended. ‘They live ages away.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Dad. ‘It’s just under an hour’s drive from the school, but in the other direction from us. If she goes, she’ll get the bus. Same as you, really.’

  My heart flopped for a minute. If I got into Baker, I might have to deal with Elizabeth for all my high school life. That would just be misery.

  ‘She might not pass the scholarship test,’ I said. ‘She might not go.’

  ‘Oh, I think they’re planning to send her to Baker anyway,’ said Dad. ‘That’s what Dave said. I mean, they can afford the ridiculous fees with the capitalist jobs they’ve got.’ He made a wry smile at Mum and she half-rolled her eyes back at him. ‘Such a sell-out from uni days, right?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Mum, with the voice she used when she really didn’t want to talk about the thing Dad wanted to talk about. She shifted her position and looked back at me. ‘If something happens to Buzz and Jessie, and they don’t end up going there, at least you’ll have Elizabeth to hang out with.’

  ‘Mum,’ I said—I was using the voice I used when I didn’t want to talk about the thing Mum wanted to talk about. ‘We’re not that good friends, okay?’

  Mum shot a glance at Dad. ‘Okay,’ she said and shifted back towards the front. ‘It doesn’t hurt to try again with people sometimes though. Maybe you should give Elizabeth another chance.’

  My excitement had gotten smaller. The next morning, it disappeared completely.

  Things had started out alright.

  ‘Have a good day,’ Mum yelled to me as I sped down the driveway on my bike for the bus, but I hardly heard her. I just wanted to find my friends and tell them the news about the solo. I hardly noticed Sam, hanging around the fence when I got off the bus and headed into school.

  ‘Abby,’ he said, but I rushed past.

  ‘I’ve just got to find Buzz and Jess,’ I said, looking back at him. ‘In a sec, okay?’ I flung my bag against the outside wall of the classroom. Buzz always hung hers neatly on the hook, but I couldn’t see why it mattered so much. It was just a bag. And then I ran down the verandah, jumped the steps and galloped to the Year Six seats.

  ‘Buzz, Jessie,’ I sang out. ‘Did you guys hear what hap ...’

  I stopped in surprise and stared at the scene in front of me.

  Buzz and Jessie were there; Buzz firmly in the middle of the big bench and Jessie perched on the arm. And they were surrounded by a crowd. It wasn’t just the kids in our class—there were Year Fives there too, huddled around, listening intently and whispering amongst themselves.

  I frowned, and then elbowed my way through the chattering Year Fives to find a seat.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘Year Six leader coming through.’ But no one even budged. I stepped back, shook my head in confusion and then put my ear in closer. All I could hear was a bunch of questions.

  ‘So where did they do it?’

  ‘Did you even see?’

  ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘Is it really true?’

  And then I realised that behind all the questions was someone’s voice, telling a story. The voice belonged to Buzz. And she sounded happier than I’d ever heard her in the four years of being her best friend.

  Now nothing could stop me pushing my way in. When they saw me, some of the Year Five kids made faces at each other and melted away, going to find handballs and skipping ropes, until finally it was just me looking at Buzz and Jessie with a bunch of boys around us.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘What’s happened?’

  Buzz looked up at me with an expression in her eyes I didn’t recognise. ‘Just telling everyone about the party.’

  ‘Party?’ I asked. ‘When’s it going to be on?’

  There was a small silence and then Jessie bit her lip. ‘Um, it was Stella’s party. It was on the weekend.’

  My mouth dropped open a little bit and my stomach felt cold, like I’d been eating ice blocks. But not nice-tasting ones.

&
nbsp; ‘Who went?’ I asked, trying to sound casual. I looked around for a seat, but there still wasn’t room for me, and no one seemed to be shifting to let me in.

  ‘Most of us,’ said Buzz. She was still looking straight at me. Jessie’s eyes had dropped to her shoes.

  I swallowed. ‘She didn’t invite me?’

  ‘She knew you were doing the Baker test,’ said Buzz. She shrugged. ‘She couldn’t change the day and that’s all you were talking about.’

  The concrete under my feet felt like it was getting softer and my head felt like it was going to maybe roll off my shoulders. ‘You guys were going to do it too,’ I said. ‘The Baker test, I mean.’ I stared at Buzz, hard. She looked away and shrugged, so I turned to Jessie, whose face was now practically on the floor.

  ‘My dad said no. It was too expensive, even to do the test. And I knew I’d never get it.’

  ‘Buzz?’ There was a white, angry feeling building in my chest that was strangling my voice. Buzz shrugged her shoulders. ‘I just didn’t do it. I’m going to Chrys. You know that.’

  ‘What about the Smart Gir ...’ I started, but Buzz shook her head, raised her eyebrows and made a shh gesture with her fingers, as if to say, Don’t talk about that here. I let out a breath of relief. She was right. I’d nearly let out the secret in front of everyone. Maybe the exam wasn’t that important. Our secret club was still our secret club.

  I stepped back, cracked my knuckles together, and made a movement for Ollie to shove over and let me sit down next to him. The anger was still there but it had moved down a bit. I took a few breaths, just to compose myself, and the conversation started up again around me.

  ‘So, you’re sure it happened?’ asked Jackson. ‘You actually saw it?’

  ‘And it was definitely Stella?’ said Tom. ‘And Sam.’

  ‘And it was definitely on the lips?’ said Ollie.

  I nearly fell off my seat.

  ‘What?’

  There was a sudden silence and around me, all I could see were ten startled pairs of eyes staring at me, and then moving to look at Buzz.