A Year in Girl Hell Read online

  ‘Get off, fatty!’ I joke, pushing her legs away. There’s no way you could ever describe Alysha as fat. Then I notice something.

  ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Have you shaved your legs? They’re all kind of … smooth.’

  Alysha looks embarrassed and defensive at the same time. ‘Yeah, I did them last night. You know, first day of high school, and all that.’ She raises one hairless leg in the air and twists it around so we can admire it from different angles. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Nice,’ says Mia. ‘Does your mum know?’

  ‘Nope,’ says Alysha. ‘It took ages. And I got into serious trouble from Dad for using his razor.’

  ‘My dad probably wouldn’t even notice if I used his razor,’ I say. ‘Maybe I should try it some time.’

  Mia squeezes my arm. ‘Oh Lexi, is it that bad?’

  ‘It is lately,’ I sigh. Dad wasn’t even around this morning to wish me luck for my first day at high school. By the time I got up he’d already left for work. That seems to be happening more and more these days, like he can’t stand to be in the same house as his own family.

  I pick up an empty chocolate wrapper from the floor, willing more to magically appear like that ad for chocolate biscuits on TV. When nothing happens, I screw it into a ball and throw it at the bin in the corner of the room. It hits the wall instead.

  ‘Promise you won’t ever tell anyone, okay?’ I pause to catch my breath. ‘But I think Mum and Dad might be going to split up.’

  ‘No way!’ Mia is shocked. ‘I’m so sorry, Lexi.’

  ‘It’s just this feeling I get sometimes,’ I tell them, my stomach twisting as I force out the words. ‘It might be nothing, but … well, they just seem to be arguing all the time. And Dad seems to come home from work later and later. And leaves earlier.’ I grab the heart-shaped pillow from the floor and hug it to my chest. ‘That’s a bad sign, don’t you think?’

  Alysha tosses her hair. ‘Not necessarily. You should hear the barneys my parents have most days.’

  ‘Yeah, and maybe your dad just has a big project on at work at the moment?’ says Mia.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say, but I’m not convinced. ‘Are you sure there’s no more chocolate? Even in the emergency emergency supply?’

  Mia gives me a hug. ‘Poor Lexi,’ she says. ‘You’re not having a good day, are you?’

  I shake my head slowly. ‘Why does everything have to change?’

  But nobody seems to know the answer to that.

  Chapter 3

  I’m standing at my locker the next morning, trying to make sense of the timetable taped inside the door, when someone tugs my hair. ‘What have we got first up, Lex?’

  I spin around. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ I say to Alysha, relaxing. I consult the timetable again. ‘Art. In Room 33.’

  Alysha pulls a face. ‘Which is like … where?’

  ‘Beats me,’ I say. ‘Guess we’ll find it eventually.’ It’s the kind of thing Mia would know – she’s the queen of organisation – but even her locker is in a different part of the corridor to ours.

  We move out into a steady stream of students travelling along in their own little orbits. ‘Hey,’ I say, spotting a guy from our class. ‘There’s that Henry guy. Let’s follow him.’

  Alysha crinkles up her nose. ‘Do we have to? He’s kind of eeuw. And geeky. Remember when we were talking about our “hobbies and interests” in that getting-to-know-you game in home room yesterday? He kept banging on about how wonderful that Warhammer game is all the time. How he stays up all night playing it.’

  ‘Yeah, but he looks like he knows where he’s going,’ I point out.

  ‘Okay,’ Alysha concedes. ‘Let’s do it. Just not too closely, all right?’

  We follow Henry down the long corridor, out into the quadrangle and across to the creative arts block. He’s better than a GPS!

  ‘This is great,’ I tell Alysha, as we end up smack bang outside Room 33, watching the rest of our class milling around the quadrangle trying to find it. ‘Maybe we should just hook up with Henry every time we have to find a room.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ says Alysha. ‘Look at him! He’s so weird. I don’t want people to think I hang out with guys like that.’

  I sneak a quick look at Henry. He looks pretty normal to me. A bit short maybe, and a loser haircut that his mum probably made him have to start school. But no worse than the boys who were in our grade last year.

  ‘That’s a bit harsh, Leesh,’ I tell her, but she just shrugs.

  The rest of our class finally arrive and queue up crookedly on the steps. Then our art teacher turns up, jangling a huge bunch of keys to unlock the door with, and we all file into the room.

  ‘Let’s sit over there,’ Alysha says, heading for a table right at the back of the room.

  The tables are set up to seat four students each. A couple of girls start to move towards ours but Alysha puts a protective arm across the back of one of the chairs. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘There’s already someone sitting here.’

  Both girls shrug and move off to find somewhere else to sit.

  I stare at Alysha. ‘What did you do that for?’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Did you see how short her fringe is? And how crooked? Obviously a Mummy job.’

  I give my own fringe a self-conscious tug. ‘So? She can’t help having a hairstyle-challenged mother. She might be really nice.’

  ‘With those legs?’ Alysha sniggers. ‘I don’t think so. Definitely dork material.’

  I sneak a look at the girl’s legs. Her knees are a little on the pudgy side, but apart from that they look perfectly normal. Where exactly is Alysha coming from? She never used to make mean comments about people like this.

  Behind her, two guys are swatting at a couple of pretty girls with their folders, making them shriek. My heart skitters around inside my ribcage. They’re so close! One of them’s Jack Moxham. Gorgeous Jack Moxham, who I’ve been officially in love with since yesterday. He’s got the best hair – his fringe is all soft and floppy and has tawny gold highlights through it. Natural ones, I reckon. And his eyes are deep green. Green like the water at the end of the jetty. I’ve never seen eyes that colour before. Well, maybe on models in magazines.

  Yesterday in home room he said his hobby was collecting shrunken heads, especially home room teachers’, and everyone laughed. I don’t remember the other guy’s name. Nick something maybe? He’s okay, but not as hot as Jack. I wonder if Alysha thinks so, too. I’m dying to talk to her about my crush. But from the way she’s been behaving lately, I’m not so sure I want to. I think I’ll just keep my opinions to myself for a while, in case they don’t match hers.

  ‘Hurry up, you lot, and find a seat. We haven’t got all day.’ The art teacher’s on the warpath.

  Jack and Nick plonk themselves down at the nearest table, but there’s no room left for the girls. They look around the art room, searching for some spare seats.

  Alysha gives them a little wave and taps our table lightly with her hand. ‘Over here,’ she mouths.

  I stare at her, giving her a ‘what did you do that for?’ look.

  The girls stay where they are, scowling. You can tell they’d much rather be sitting at Jack and Nick’s table.

  ‘Come on, ladies.’ The art teacher’s voice is firm. ‘There are two spare seats at the back of the room.’

  Sighing, the girls shuffle over to our table and dump their bags on the floor. There were girls just like these two in our grade at Gold Street. Their hair’s really straight and shiny, they walk with a kind of bounce, and they are experts on everything. The best brands, the best ringtone for your mobile, the best shade of lip gloss. We called them ‘shiny’ girls. They never spoke much to us.

  ‘Hi,’ whispers Alysha, tossing her hair. ‘I’m Alysha. With a Y.’

  The girls raise their eyebrows slightly, but they don’t say anything.

  ‘You’re Paige and Jayde, right?’ Alysha burbles on. ‘I love the way you do your hair.’<
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  Paige – at least I think it’s Paige, they’re interchangeable as far as I can see – perks up a bit more then. ‘Thanks,’ she says, running her fingers through her long mane.

  ‘We get it cut at the same place,’ Jayde tells Alysha, who’s glowing like a Christmas tree now that they’ve finally allowed themselves to talk to her. ‘Alfio’s, on High Street.’

  ‘Oh, me too,’ Alysha tells them. Fibber. She goes to Sharon’s Cut and Curl, in Myrtle Street, like we’ve all done for years.

  I shoot a worried look over to the teacher, convinced our table’s going to cop it for talking. But she’s too busy introducing herself – her name’s Ms Van Rees – and telling us about the rules for behaviour in the art room to notice. I guess there are some advantages to sitting at the back of the room. And it’s not like Alysha, Jayde and Paige are exactly yelling or anything.

  I wait for Alysha to tell the girls who I am, but she doesn’t, and they don’t ask. They just keep chatting away quietly to Alysha, slyly stopping every time Ms Van Rees looks over in our direction in case she catches them out. I can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but it must be about the boys they were mucking around with earlier. I hear the names Jack and Nick a few times, and some other stuff about lunchtime. Are they planning to meet up then? It’s hard to tell.

  Hello, I think, there are four people at this table. How come nobody’s speaking to me? Should I remind Alysha I’m here too?

  I lean across her. ‘Umm … hi …’ I mumble to Paige. ‘My name’s –’

  But I don’t get to finish my sentence. Ms Van Rees is dropping four large pieces of paper onto our table, along with some boxes of pastels.

  ‘Remember, girls,’ she tells us in her big booming voice, ‘make your self-portraits as revealing as possible. Tell me as much about yourself as you can through your pictures.’

  Self-portraits? Is that what we’re supposed to be doing? I must have missed that part of Ms Van Rees’ speech. I pass one of the boxes of pastels to Alysha but she doesn’t even thank me. She’s too busy twittering away to Paige and Jayde about what they all did in the holidays.

  Last year in art, Alysha, Mia and I always talked about what we were going to do before we started drawing or painting. What the background would be like, and what colours we were going to use. But Alysha’s got other things on her mind. And Mia’s not here. I shuffle the pastels around in the box for a while, then pick out a pink one and start sketching. Two legs. Two arms. A blobby body. But when it comes to the face I can’t think of anything to draw.

  Anything at all.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Nyeeeeeeooowww! Kapow! Kapow! Kapow!’

  Jordan’s running round the lounge room with his underpants over his head like a robber’s balaclava. At least I think that’s what they’re supposed to be. I hope they’re clean ones. As he runs past, he fires shots from his imaginary superballistic missile-launcher at Pushkin, who’s stretched out on the sofa, licking her hind leg. She looks up at him with her head on the side for a second, then goes back to grooming herself.

  ‘Jordan!’ Mum’s voice is cold. ‘If you can’t play inside quietly, go out into the garden.’

  ‘But Mu-u-u-m, it’s no fun out there.’

  ‘Outside, now,’ orders Mum. ‘You’re doing my head in.’

  Jordan sticks out his bottom lip. ‘Lexi has to come too.’

  ‘No way, Jorboy,’ I tell him. What if someone from school was walking past and saw me out in the garden playing with my little brother? How embarrassing would that be? ‘You’re on your own.’ Jordan sits down on the floor, crossing his arms and legs. ‘Not going then,’ he tells us. Then he takes advantage of this new angle to send out a round of low-flying missiles. ‘Kapow! Kapow! Kapow!’

  ‘Jordan! Can’t you see I’m working here? If you don’t want to go outside, go and play in your room.’ Mum sends me a pleading look. ‘Lexi, I just need half an hour, okay, and I’ll be finished. Go and play snap with him or something, can you? Just for a bit?’

  I roll my eyes. Playing a dumb card game with my little brother is the last thing I feel like doing. I just want to go to my room. There’s stuff I need to think about. Like why my dad never seems to be home anymore. Is it something I’ve done? And why Alysha is acting all weird. She never used to. And … Jack. I keep thinking about the way his tawny hair flops over his green eyes. He is so divine. I need some uninterrupted me-time so I can dream about him a bit more.

  ‘Please, Lexi.’

  I let out a deep sigh, so Mum knows exactly how much I’m sacrificing here to help her out, and go over to Jordan. ‘Jorboy, get up.’

  Jordan sticks his tongue out at me.

  I grab his arm. ‘Come on, play snap with me just for a little bit, okay? Then you can blow up the whole house if you want to.’

  Jordan twists his arm out of my grip. And then the front door bangs shut and he’s off and running, into the hall. ‘Dad! Dad!’ he screams, jumping up and flinging his arms around Dad’s waist like a baby monkey.

  Mum and I look up, surprised. Dad’s never home this early.

  Dad gently shakes Jordan off. ‘Later, okay? I’m busy right now.’

  Jordan slumps back down into his sitting position. Mum’s voice is quiet. ‘Is something wrong? Are you ill?’

  I hold my breath. He’s come home early because he’s going to leave us. He’s going to walk right out on us, right now, just like Emma Harrison’s dad did when we were in Year 5.

  Dad flashes her a brief smile. ‘Me? No, everything’s fine. I’ve just come home to get some things. That contract’s come through and they want me up at the Sydney office to go over the details with the client.’ He checks his watch. ‘My flight leaves in an hour and a half, so I’d better get cracking.’

  I slowly let my breath out again, bit by bit. It’s okay. Dad’s not going anywhere. Well, he is. But just for a work thing. He’ll be coming back home again. It’s not like Emma Harrison’s dad at all.

  ‘And you didn’t think to call me? To let me know your plans?’ Mum’s voice is icy now.

  My heart starts thumping again.

  ‘Janey, it was all so last minute. There simply wasn’t time.’

  ‘Kids, go into the family room, okay? I’m sure there’s something on TV you’d like to watch.’ Then Mum turns back to Dad.

  ‘Yay! Cartoonies!’ shrieks Jordan. This time I don’t have to drag him out of the kitchen.

  I wait till Jordan’s settled in front of the TV, and then creep back to the hallway and crouch behind the door so I can hear what’s going on in the kitchen. But their voices are too low and muffled for me to make out actual words. Just angry mumbling, back and forth, back and forth, like a sad tennis match.

  Pushkin comes up and winds herself around my ankles. I put my finger to my lips. ‘Ssshhhh,’ I tell her. I give her a long cuddle, then push her gently away. I check to see that Jordan is okay. Then I quietly let myself out the back door and run down the street to Mia’s place.

  ‘Hey, Mia? Are you in there?’

  I push aside the curtain that divides Pink HQ from the Zugaro family garage. Mia’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, sorting through a big box of photos. She waves me in.

  ‘Hi, Lex. Come and help me with these. I’m trying to find some good ones from last year.’

  I flop down next to her onto an oversized cushion. The first photo I pick up shows Alysha and me dressed up for our graduation party. Her arm is draped around my shoulder and she’s smiling at me. No way would you think she was the same person who blanked me in art today. It seems so long ago. I throw it back down into the box.

  ‘What’s up?’ asks Mia, noticing the expression on my face.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I sigh. ‘Probably nothing.’

  Talk to Mia, says another little voice. Tell Mia about it. But I can’t. How can I tell Mia something as big as this?

  But she’s my friend, isn’t she? One of my besties? Who always understands, no matter what
I tell her?

  I grab a pile of photos from the box and shuffle through them. ‘Mia?’ I begin. ‘You know how my mum and dad are always figh–’ But before I get a chance to finish my sentence there’s a rustling sound and a weird-looking girl carrying a small case appears from behind the curtain. She’s dressed all in black – black dress, black tights, black boots. Even her hair is black, long and straight, with a thick blunt fringe.

  ‘Michi!’ cries Mia, jumping up to greet her. ‘So you found us okay?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ says the girl. ‘Your mum told me I’d find you out here.’

  Her eyes light up as she takes in Pink HQ. ‘Cool place,’ she tells us.

  ‘Thanks,’ grins Mia. ‘This is Michi,’ she tells me. ‘Michi, Lexi. Michi’s in my class. She’s really into music, too.’

  I thought she looked kind of familiar. I pat the cushion beside me, inviting her to sit down. I point to the case. ‘Is that a violin?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Michi says. ‘Mia told me you guys get together to play sometimes. And when I told her I play in the youth orchestra, she invited me to join in.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I say, impressed. ‘You play in the orchestra? You must be, like, really good.’

  Michi laughs. ‘I’m okay,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t be so modest,’ says Mia. ‘You play really well.’

  Michi settles back on her cushion. ‘I love these,’ she tells us. ‘Very relaxing.’ Then she smiles sideways at Mia from under her eyelashes. ‘Though they’d look much better in black,’ she adds cheekily.

  ‘Maybe,’ says Mia. ‘We kind of like pink.’

  ‘I noticed,’ says Michi, looking around the room. ‘Hey, pink’s cool too.’

  ‘Sure is,’ says Mia. ‘I love your boots, Michi, but they’d look much better in pink.’

  They grin at each other, then Mia takes Michi on a guided tour of Pink HQ. Maybe it’s just as well Michi turned up when she did, before I spilled my guts to Mia about my mum and dad’s arguments getting worse. If I keep talking about it to Mia and Alysha, it will make whatever’s going on real.