How to Make Friends

by Charlotte Barkla

  I grabbed a compression bandage from the kit, and ran back to Mr Zhu. I wound it around his head, making sure to keep it firm but not too tight.

  ‘How does that feel?’ I asked when I was done.

  He put his hand up to the bandage, and smiled weakly. ‘Good, I think.’

  ‘I might add another one, just to be certain.’ I scratched my chin. ‘Annie B, can you grab another bandage, please?’

  ‘Sure.’ She sprinted to the cupboard and returned with a big pile of bandage. (Probably enough to bandage a whole house.)

  I shrugged. ‘Better safe than sorry, I guess.’ I wound the bandage round and round Mr Zhu’s head, securing it at the nape of his neck.

  ‘Done!’ I said, sitting back.

  ‘Looks pretty good,’ Ollie said. He patted Mr Zhu’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Zhu, you’re not going to die.’

  ‘Wath bath?’ said Mr Zhu, whose mouth was partly covered by the bandage. (Like I said, it was a very long bandage.)

  Samirah, who’d sat up from her resting spot in the reading corner, squealed and lay back down. His head did look a lot like an Egyptian mummy’s, I had to admit. Emily James fanned Samirah’s face with a picture book.

  Mr Zhu’s shoulders tensed. ‘Froth broth?’ he said, struggling to locate the source of the squeal. (Truth be told, his eyes were partly covered as well.)

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I assured him, ‘Samirah’s fine. Everything’s under control.’

  I turned to Riley. ‘Can you fetch Mr Zhu a glass of water, please?’

  ‘Sure.’ He sprinted for the sink.

  Then I raced for the phone and dialled through to Nurse Di in sick bay, asking her to come to Room 13B as soon as she could.

  I was checking Mr Zhu’s pulse when a high-pitched voice came from behind me.

  ‘What on earth is going on here?’

  Ms Newton power walked through the door.

  Ms Newton’s face was white. ‘Is everything okay? Mr Zhu – are you injured?’

  ‘Bith both.’ He tried to prise away the bandage that was covering his eyes and mouth.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ms Newton,’ I assured her. ‘Everything’s under control. I’ve been to detention, remember?’

  But for some reason, her face went even paler.

  By the time Nurse Di arrived from sick bay, I’d explained the situation to Ms Newton, and her face had resumed its normal colour. Ms Newton had dismissed the rest of the class for lunch, but I was keen to stay with my patient.

  ‘Will he need stitches?’ I asked, hovering nearby as Nurse Di inspected Mr Zhu’s cut.

  ‘Stitches? No, no.’ She peered through her glasses. ‘It’s just a minor cut.’

  Ms Newton exhaled. ‘Thank goodness.’

  I sighed as well. ‘So he won’t need an ambulance then?’ I was glad Mr Zhu didn’t need to go to hospital, but I’d really been hoping for a ride in an ambulance. Preferably with the flashing lights and siren.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ she said, the corners of her mouth turning up a little. ‘A simple bandage will suffice.’

  She glanced at the pile of bandages on the table, which she’d unwound from Mr Zhu’s head. ‘You probably didn’t need to use quite so much bandage.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed, looking at my feet. I think I’d been getting confused with snakebites. I needed to go back to detention to brush up on my first-aid skills.

  ‘Although,’ Nurse Di continued, ‘that was one of the best compression bandages I’ve seen for a while.’

  I looked up. Nurse Di was smiling at me. So was Mr Zhu.

  And so was Ms Newton.

  ‘You did a fantastic job today, Edie.’ Mr Zhu’s eyes crinkled. He was looking much better now that he wasn’t covered in bandage. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’

  My heart went all light and fluffy like fairy floss.

  ‘Yes, well done, Edie,’ agreed Ms Newton. ‘Your first-aid skills were somewhat . . .’ She raised an eyebrow ‘. . . overenthusiastic. But they were certainly commendable.’

  I grinned. Overenthusiastic and commendable. That was a double compliment if ever I’d heard one.

  ‘Am I going to be moved up to level three?’ I asked, my chest tightening. A helicopter to the head couldn’t be good news for my Positive Behaviour Plan, that’s for sure.

  But Ms Newton looked startled. ‘Level three? Oh no, Edie. That won’t be necessary. It was just an accident. And you did a fantastic job helping out.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’ I exhaled.

  ‘In fact,’ said Ms Newton, tapping her chin, ‘your initiative today was so impressive, I think we can move you back to level zero. How does that sound?’

  I gasped. ‘Mrs N, are you serious? That’d be great!’

  It was more than great – it felt like an elephant had been lifted off my shoulders.

  ‘Is there anything else I can help with?’ I asked Nurse Di, as I peered into the first-aid kit. ‘Are you sure he doesn’t need stitches? There might be a needle in here, I’m pretty sure I could do it myself –’

  ‘No!’ All three interrupted at the same time.

  ‘Okay, well, let me know if you change your mind!’

  I skipped out the door.

  The adrenaline from my fast first aid lasted until the end of lunchtime. After that, I was exhausted. Saving the day was pretty tiring stuff! Akiyama Sensei’s Japanese lesson went in one ear and out the other.

  When I arrived home that afternoon, I felt like I’d run a marathon while wearing flippers. I flopped back on the couch and groaned. ‘What a day,’ I said to myself.

  I was sprawled on the couch, replaying my heroic morning in my head, when I heard keys jangling in the front door.

  ‘Dad!’ I jumped up. I couldn’t wait to tell him all about my day. ‘You’ll never guess –’ But Mum’s head poked through the doorway instead. ‘Mum?’ I blinked. ‘What are you doing back already?’ It was only 4 pm. Mum wasn’t usually back until at least 6 pm.

  ‘I wanted to start our weekend early.’ She smiled as she placed her handbag inside the door.

  ‘Oh.’ My heart lifted. ‘Awesome!’

  ‘And,’ she added, ‘I’ve got a surprise . . .’

  ‘A surprise?’

  Mum opened the door fully. A girl with a mop of red hair and a grin as wide as an eagle’s wingspan bounded through the door.

  ‘Winnie!’ I raced over and enveloped her in a giant hug.

  ‘Stop!’ she giggled. ‘You’re squishing me!’ But she squished me right back, just as tight.

  When I’d finally released her, I looked from her to Mum, and back again. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Well,’ Mum said, putting an arm around my shoulders, ‘I thought it might be nice to have a sleepover weekend.’ Hey eyes sparkled. ‘An experimental sleepover weekend, actually.’

  ‘Really? That’s awesome!’ My insides went all warm and fuzzy. ‘Thank you, Mum!’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Maggie,’ Winnie chimed in.

  ‘You’re both very welcome,’ she replied. ‘It’s been a while since you two have done any experiments together.’

  I squeezed Winnie’s hand. ‘A while’ was an understatement. It felt like it had been ten years.

  ‘And it’s been a while since we’ve done any projects together too,’ Mum added. ‘Sorry, Edie. The last few weeks have been tough, I know. For all of us.’ She sighed. ‘And when you said you were quitting science last week, well . . .’

  Winnie’s brow furrowed. ‘Quitting science?’

  ‘Oh, that was ages ago,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’m not quitting science. Not ever. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ I couldn’t quit science, I just couldn’t. It would be much too dangerous.

  I didn’t care if I was destined to a lifetime of solo experiments – I needed to be a scientist. I mean, what would’ve happened today if it weren’t for my scientific first-aid skills? (True, maybe the accident wouldn’t have happened in the first place if I hadn’t been flying the
helicopter, but that was beside the point.)

  ‘You’re not?’ Winnie exhaled. ‘Thank goodness for that. I thought I might need to create another soap bomb to convince you.’ She opened her eyes wide.

  I laughed. We’d made soap bombs as Christmas gifts for our whole street a few years ago. They were an exhilarating gift, to say the least.

  ‘Well, that’s good to hear,’ Mum said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without my little scientist.’ She kissed the top of my head, and wrapped me in a super-duper Mum-hug.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ With my face pressed into her shoulder, my heart felt like it was going to burst. But in a good way this time; not like when I experimented with adding chilli flavouring to soda.

  ‘All right, enough hugging!’ said Winnie, hopping from foot to foot. ‘We need to get started on an experiment!’ She pointed to my skipping rope in the corner of the room. ‘Should we do a skipping rope challenge?’

  All of a sudden, the events of the day caught up with me.

  I yawned as I sank onto the couch. ‘That sounds awesome. But how about we do it tomorrow? We could watch a movie tonight instead?’

  Winnie’s jaw dropped. ‘A movie? Instead of a science experiment?’

  Mum cocked her head to the side. ‘Big day at school, sweetie?’

  I sighed. ‘You have no idea.’

  It turns out, that there’s one easy way to get your screen-time ban erased . . . perform first aid on your teacher. Not that I’d recommend it – I’m sure there are other ways. But Mum was so impressed with my quick thinking and fast first-aid skills, she said I could consider the ban cancelled.

  To celebrate my return to screen time (and return from retirement), we spent Friday evening relaxing in front of a movie. It was the perfect end to a pretty crazy day.

  On Saturday morning, we got straight into a jam-packed experimental weekend. We started by making breakfast pizzas with Mum, using bacon, eggs and sausages for the topping (which turned out much better than the time I used cereal and milk last year). Then we held a paper plane design competition in the park with Dad. Max’s plane flew the furthest – twenty metres in total! (Although he did have an advantage when a dog picked it up and carried it to the other side of the basketball court.)

  Then, after lunch, we ran the Apology Cookie Experiment again. This time, I made sure to add exactly the right amount of each ingredient. I even triple-checked the measurements, just to be sure.

  After the cookies were out of the oven and we’d given them a thorough taste-test, I was pleased to find that all quantities appeared to be in order.

  They were so nice, in fact, I decided to take a plate over to Joe, to help smooth things over. I braced myself for the worst, but when he came to the door he accepted the plate with a smile and a, ‘why thank you, that’s lovely’. I was very proud of myself because we managed to carry out a conversation for at least two minutes, and I didn’t infuriate him once. Not even a little.

  He even seemed pretty interested in the paper plane design competition we’d held. (It turned out he used to be an aeronautical engineer before he retired . . . what are the chances?) I told him we’d definitely let him know the next time we made paper planes, so he could join in.

  All in all, it was a pretty great day.

  After an awesome weekend with Winnie and my family, I woke up on Monday feeling funny. I’d had such an amazing weekend but, when we’d dropped Winnie back to her house on Sunday afternoon, I felt like I was being split in two. I’d waved out the window all the way down our old street, until we turned the corner and she disappeared from sight. It felt like we were moving house all over again.

  So as I sat in English class the next morning, listening to Mr Zhu drone on about punctuation, I felt this funny mixture of really sad, really happy and really thankful, all at the same time. I missed Winnie being at school with me and doing experiments together, that was for sure. But at least I had an awesome lab team of scientists at home: Mum, Dad and Max.

  Besides, there were plenty of projects I could do all by myself, if I wanted to.

  In fact, as I sat in class trying to look interested in Mr Zhu’s monotone explanation of apostrophes, I devised my next experiment.

  I’d completed a scale model of Stonehenge (aka ‘Pebble-henge’) and was about to make a start on Sydney Rockera House when a voice came from over my shoulder.

  ‘What are you doing, Edie?’

  I whipped around to see Annie B scuffing her feet on the grass.

  ‘Oh, just making a pebble city,’ I explained. It wasn’t exactly an exciting experiment, but I do enjoy the opportunity to try my hand at city planning.

  She cocked her head to the side. ‘Need an extra engineer?’

  My eyebrows almost hit the jacaranda tree. ‘You want to help?’

  ‘Sure.’ She plonked down next to me. ‘I always make block cities at home with my brothers.’

  My heart skipped a beat. ‘You do? That’s awesome!’ I pointed to a spare spot next to the row of pebble houses I’d constructed. ‘Do you want to make a hospital over there? Those houses could really do with some services and amenities.’

  ‘No problem!’

  By the end of lunchtime, Annie B and I had managed to build a pretty awesome mini city. It turns out that Annie B has a great eye for pebble design – she managed to find the shiniest and smoothest rocks, which were great for our city’s aesthetics.

  ‘It looks amazing,’ I said, dusting my hands off. ‘Even if it’s a bit dirty.’

  ‘At least it’s not muddy,’ Annie B said, her eyes twinkling.

  I laughed. ‘That’s true.’

  As we sat back admiring our work, I noticed a couple of green splotches on the side of her glasses. I pointed to her frames. ‘Was that from the slime incident?’ I asked, feeling guilty.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, taking them off and showing me the spots dotted along the rims. ‘I accidentally left this pair in the classroom that day.’

  I gulped. ‘Sorry about that.’ I scratched my chin. ‘The best thing to clean it off with is vinegar and lemon juice.’ That had worked for me when I accidentally slimed Max’s dinosaurs the year before. (Some bits of slime had ended up stuck between the dinosaur’s claws, and were pretty tricky to dislodge.)

  But Annie B’s eyes widened. ‘Clean it off? Why would I want to do that?’ She blinked at me. ‘These are much better than the ones the optometrist sells. Their glasses are plain and boring – nothing cool like this.’ She tapped her frames.

  ‘Oh.’ I didn’t expect that.

  ‘Actually . . .’ she said, cocking her head to the side. ‘Do you think you could teach me how to make slime one day? I’d really like to decorate my other set too.’

  I grinned. ‘Definitely!’

  So, as it turned out, my Surprise Slime Experiment was successful . . . sort of. Sure, it landed me in the principal’s office and set in motion a chain of events that almost knocked out my teacher and got me suspended, but that’s beside the point. It also led to me getting to know Annie B, so I’d have to say it was a success, overall.

  The whole thing did make me wonder though, maybe I could’ve avoided all those failed experiments (Slime-plosion, Bitter Biscuits, Freaky Flowers and Mud-tastrophe), if I’d skipped straight to Pebble-struction? That would’ve been a much simpler way to start my school year.

  Oh well. I’ll make a note for next time.

  A couple of weeks later, Annie B came over to make slime. Mum had spoken to her dad, who said he didn’t mind if we decorated her glasses. In fact, we decided to make a whole family art class out of it.

  ‘This is great!’ said Annie B, as she dripped handfuls of slime onto her glasses.

  ‘I agree,’ said Dad, flicking slime onto a glass jar. ‘Who would’ve thought slime would be so artistic?’

  ‘Yes, I’m very impressed by your ingenuity, girls.’ Mum winked at me as she helped Max splatter some onto a timber photo frame.

  ‘Slime fun!’ Max grinned. />
  I couldn’t say anything. I was smiling too much to talk at all.

  Once we’d finished our slime projects, I turned to Annie B. ‘Want a tour of my lab?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Sure!’

  We ran upstairs to my bedroom, so I could show her my latest experiments. She was pretty impressed with my Chilli Farming Experiment (four pots of chilli seeds, with different sunlight and watering regimes), and she really liked my Colourful Flowers Experiment (three white flowers in vases, each with water containing different-coloured food dye).

  ‘Awesome,’ said Annie B, looking at the blue dye that was slowly creeping up the flower stalk. (I should point out – these flowers were from our garden, not Joe’s.) She cocked her head to the side. ‘Maybe you should investigate food colouring strength too?’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I hadn’t thought of that.

  She nodded enthusiastically. ‘You could test some vases with one drop of dye and the others with five drops, and see what difference it makes.’

  ‘Great idea!’ I jotted the idea down in my experiment notepad.

  ‘What’s that?’ Annie B pointed to my box of wrinkle cream jars sticking out from under my bed. ‘Is that another experiment?’

  ‘Sort of . . .’ I told her all about my moisturiser creation attempt, and its unfortunate consequence in Ms Newton’s office.

  ‘I’m not convinced it works though,’ I said. ‘So it’s probably a good thing Ms Newton didn’t want any.’ There hadn’t been any noticeable changes in Max’s temperament or skin elasticity since he’d been using it. I was starting to think maybe I got the formula wrong. ‘I think I’ll tip these out and recycle them.’ I kicked the box with my foot.

  Annie B smiled. ‘Should we give it one final test?’

  So we smothered a handful of cream over our faces. We came to the conclusion that we didn’t feel any happier, more carefree or more likely to flick our hair around than prior to application.

  Knock knock.

  Mum poked her head through the door. She startled as she took in our gloopy white faces. ‘What on earth?’ She shook her head. ‘I won’t ask.’